Love ‘em or hate ‘em, a business plan is one of the cornerstones of any new or expanding business - it’s simply the distilling and compiling of your knowledge into one source, either for your own reference, or for the reference of your staff or stakeholders.
Again, those immortal words: Don’t Panic.
A business plan should never be an anchor or a dead weight dragging your business down - and it should never be an onerous task to put one together.
The good news is that there are 3 wildly different types of business plans - each one focussing on a different business purpose - and one of these types of plans should suit your needs perfectly, without undue effort.
Don’t believe me? Read on…
OK, so why am I giving you a run-down of how to start a new business or launch a new product or service - when the economy is all over the place, and business and consumer confidence is falling like a lead balloon…?
The answer is actually simple: the next wave of new businesses and new product and services are usually born during periods of economic slowdown, since it is *during* these times that all the half-thought-through ideas fall by the wayside, leaving only the truly remarkable remaining.
So… don’t despair - in fact, get your thinking cap on, and see what new product or service or solutions to everyday problems lies waiting dormant within your brain!
You know that I love to talk about marketing, especially for small businesses and solo business people - and, in general, how important it is, but in a ‘big cloud’ kind of way. That’s because marketing is vital for any business - it’s simply the act of getting your name out there in a controlled and positive way.
Nine times out of ten, though, marketing is almost impossible to measure: apart from focus groups, surveys and TV ratings, any effort you spend on marketing tends to pay off as a rather long term positive ‘aura’ surrounding your business. It’s all a bit ‘woofy’, but it does add up eventually.
Enter web site statistics: whether you have a tiny one-page ‘contact me’ web site, or a small brochure online, or a larger ecommerce or content-based web site, every person that visits your web site leaves their own individual, indelible mark.
Don’t panic - any one person can’t be identified exactly, but an awful lot can be inferred from the patterns of even just a few site visitors over time, and an awful lot more can be inferred from the patterns of many hundreds or thousands of visitors to your site, giving you - and this is important - absolute knowledge of the effectiveness of your web site, and absolute knowledge of the location, size and trends of your market.
Interested in learning more then? I thought so - you don’t hear the words ‘absolute’ and ‘marketing’ together very often!
